* "Hiring Pop to sell shirts seems an incongruity on the order of hiring Michael Stipe to sell styling gel."

* "For his part, Pop wears no underwear, exposed or otherwise. 'Things like that give me the creeps,' he said. He feels similarly about socks."

* "'If somebody has a nice ass crack, then I am always interested to have a look at it--that's the simian in me,' he said. 'But what looks funny to me is when they do it with the underwear showing. I get the idea--they are trying to show they are ready to breed, that they are alive in that sector, and they are trying to show a disrespect of a certain vague sort. It's kind of interesting, kind of dumb.'"

And the gold standard:

* "A slash of exposed chest looked not so much tanned as cured, like unsliced bresaola."

If you gave 1,000 monkeys 1,000 typewriters and 1,000 years to come with a parody of the New Yorker interviewing Iggy Pop, they couldn't come up with something that perfect. God, it's glorious. "A slash of exposed chest looked not so much tanned as cured, like unsliced bresaola."

Stick around though for Pop's health regimen: "He stays in shape with daily Qigong practice. 'It's about increasing your breathing capacity to the point where air becomes food,' he said." Whoever's job it is to make up wacky physical/spiritual disciplines for Iggy Pop to subscribe to has an awesome job.